


You're gonna heal over (someday)

by Beleriandings



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s02e13 Exit Wounds, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26176813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: After Tosh and Owen's deaths, Jack, Ianto and Gwen are exhausted, trying to put the city back together as they grieve. Luckily, Martha's there to help.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, background Martha Jones/Tom Milligan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 47
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: Bingo Fest 2020





	You're gonna heal over (someday)

**Author's Note:**

> My first entry for Torchwood Fan Fest's Bingo Fest 2020 challenge!! This fulfils the prompts "doctor's orders", "hurt/comfort" and "DW companion cameo".  
> Additional warnings for some violence, sex references (though nothing "on-screen" or at all explicit) and discussion of past character death (in this case Tosh and Owen).

As soon as she’s off the phone with Jack, Martha is immediately packing her things for her trip to Cardiff. She takes her larger suitcase; she knows how to travel light, after everything, but she doesn’t know how long she’ll be there for. This, after all, could be a long trip. Packing is easier than thinking, than hearing Jack’s words sounding in her head; _explosions, power cuts, civilian casualties. Tosh and Owen_.

It’s easy to get the time off; the forms say she’s being seconded to Torchwood again, to assist in damage control and in covering up the involvement of extraterrestrial elements, on the condition that she compiles a report for their own internal records once she returns. How dry and staid UNIT bureaucrats can make it sound, Martha thinks. In reality, she’s going to help stem the bleeding of a wounded city, and to be close to some of her best friends after the loss of two members of their family.

She doesn’t say this though. She just gets up on a Monday morning, and instead of putting on her usual uniform she dresses casually, collects her things and catches an early train to Cardiff.

The hotel she was in before is closed after being damaged by the blasts, so Ianto’s booked her into a different one, further from the bay. The longer trip takes her through the city, and right after checking in she makes for the Hub. She sees the damage all around her, in the cold light of what will become her daily commute. Huge pieces torn from buildings, char-marks on concrete where fires burned. Little clusters of flowers and cards and rain-damp plush toys left on street corners, here and there. She wonders if they’re for particular people, those innocents who died in the blasts meant to tear apart the city under Jack’s watch, as the taxi takes her past.

When Martha arrives in the Hub this time, she feels a wash of strangeness at how little has changed as she walks in through the tourist office door. All the same posters and leaflets are there, and there’s Ianto sitting behind the desk just like the first time.

He raises his head from the papers he’s reading as she walks in the door, and that’s when the difference strikes her. It’s not in how he looks; he looks almost exactly the same, suit and tie meticulously neat as ever. But the look in his eyes is different. He looks older, despite the fact that it’s only been a few months. That, and the fact that he looks utterly exhausted; both in the dark circles under his eyes and in something deeper, a hollow-eyed look and something about the way he holds himself like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

(She supposes that’s not too surprising, what with everything Jack told her, everything they’ve lost and how hard they’ve been working to set the city to rights again in the aftermath.)

Regardless, Ianto gets to his feet and nods graciously when she comes in, a small smile on his face; the expression looks slightly off though, like he’s almost forgotten how.

Martha wastes no time in going around the tourist office desk and hugging him. She takes him by surprise with it clearly, because for a moment he doesn’t react. But then his arms come up around her too, giving her back an awkward pat.

She lets him go and draws back, smiling sadly, and Ianto closes up the tourist office and they both go down into the main space of the Hub together.

As soon as the cog door rolls open Gwen’s there, arms going around Martha in a hug of her own. Gwen tucks her face into Martha’s shoulder, holding her close for a moment before letting her go, circling around to stand next to Ianto.

Martha notices that Gwen’s eyes keep darting over Ianto now when he’s in her line of vision, as though checking he’s still there.

And then there’s Jack, bounding up the stairs towards her. He hugs Martha too, long and warm and close.

The four of them end up in the conference room, sharing a pizza as they brief her on what’s been going on since the attack by John Hart and Gray. Gwen does most of the talking, with Jack picking up the story for the parts he experienced. Ianto’s quieter, only speaking up to correct or add a detail here and there.

There’s a different atmosphere between the three of them now, a sort of understanding that wasn’t there before when the team was larger. She knows what this is, of course; they’re people who have suffered together, and are in the process of healing. As they heal, she knows, their broken edges will grow even tighter together.

Still, for now there’s a chill in the air at times; Jack plays Martha Tosh’s final logout message on the large projection screen, but before he presses play Ianto gets up and turns away without a word, coming back ten minutes later with a tray of coffee cups. The stiff tension while he was gone dissipates a little, but Martha can feel the ghost of it anyway. The air between them swirls with unsaid things now, or perhaps things that don’t need to be said at all.

Nevertheless, they discuss what Martha will be doing – going through Owen’s medical case notes, interpreting his half-formed thoughts and tying off loose ends so they can be submitted to the archives for posterity. Helping with the cleanup efforts in the city, using her UNIT contacts if necessary. Helping pick up the slack and help with whatever the Rift throws at them until they’re back on their feet.

Not that they’re not already doing all they can; where before they were certainly hard workers, now they hardly ever stop. Maybe it makes it easier for them, she thinks. Either way, she understands why Ianto looked so weary when she first saw him. Gwen does too, and Jack, though of course outwardly he looks the same as he ever did. It’s in the way he looks at them and the way he holds himself though, as clear as the shadows under the others’ eyes, their pallor from spending too much time underground. The way they all hold themselves like they’re trying to keep the broken pieces from grating together.

In her first week she finds Gwen and Ianto passed out asleep together on the Hub sofa, napping against each others’ shoulders after too long without rest; as she comes down the stair from her meeting with Jack in the conference room the Rift alarm blares, and there’s just something about the way Gwen and Ianto start and cling to each others’ forearms for a moment before waking rationality returns. But a moment later it’s passed and they’re all grim determination again, wearily pulling themselves up, throwing on their jackets to go out again into the rainy Cardiff night as Jack comes down the stairs from the highwalk.

It’s odd, Martha thinks, seeing them like this. Even after all this time, she still has these moments of unreality when she sees a face she recognises, who doesn’t recognise her. Someone she met that year, most likely in terrible pain; nearly everyone was, then. Everyone fighting a war, or hiding underground, or dying in slavery. Now, living a normal life.

She met Gwen and Ianto that year too, briefly. They were fighting, of course they were. The four of them (with Tosh and Owen, and nothing’s going to fix or undo that, nothing can bring them back) were part of the resistance, had sheltered her and listened eagerly to what she had to say, hungry for any mention of Jack more than anything else she had to say. In their minds back then, if Jack was alive then there was still hope, even in a ruined world.

(She doesn’t know what happened to them after that day; she heard the Master got hold of them in the end. She doesn’t have the heart to ask Jack if that was true.)

But that year never happened; not to them, anyway. And Tosh and Owen are dead – again – and Gwen and Ianto are still fighting, they never ever stop fighting alongside Jack. She knows they’d follow him into hell itself if it came to it.

She’s scared, when she looks at them, that one day it will.

Their jobs are dangerous, more dangerous than hers now, she knows. They’re severely short-handed, constantly exhausted, running on fumes even as they try to push through their grief. It’s the reason she’s here; that, and because the city is bleeding and she has to do what she can.

And so, Martha sets to work.

* * *

One day not long after she arrives, Jack runs into the Hub. Gwen’s cradled in his arms, blood all down one side; a particularly feisty weevil, Martha will learn later. It was supposed to be a routine Rift retrieval mission, but the artifact they’d been looking for had happened to fall into a weevil’s nest down in the sewers, and they’d caught a skittish mother by surprise.

But Martha doesn’t know that then; she only hears Jack shouting orders, Gwen moaning in pain as he jostles her wound, a trail of blood dripping to the ground and _plink_ ing down through the gratings into the tide pool.

She’s there in an instant, and Ianto’s dropped the stack of files he’d been carrying up from the archives to come to Gwen’s side, as Jack lays her down in the med-bay. Ianto looks tense and pale at the sight of all that blood; Gwen’s covered in it, and so is Jack, though which of their blood it is isn’t clear.

Martha doesn’t panic; this is what she’s here for, after all. She peels back Gwen’s ripped t-shirt, inspecting the wound. “Alright Gwen, it looks worse than it is” she tells her. “Not too deep. I just need to stop the bleeding and stitch you up, and you’ll be right as rain, hmm?” She keeps working as she talks, keeping Gwen – and Jack – distracted, keeping their eyes on her. Gwen nods, wide-eyed and gasping with pain slightly. “Course of antibiotics after, because I doubt weevils are much for personal hygiene.” That gets a weak, slightly hysterical smile. “Right. Ianto, can you get me that gauze from–” but it’s already beside her; Ianto’s come around to her other side while she’s been talking, and is steadily assembling a neat row of things she’ll need. “Thanks” she says.

She works quickly and efficiently; the wound really isn’t as bad as it looks, the cuts in Gwen’s stomach and down across her left hip long but relatively shallow. If she’s lucky, there won’t be too much scarring.

Gwen’s already got scars on her skin, Martha notes; quite a number of them. She recognises the spray of little pinpoint scars on the other side of her stomach; birdshot, by her best guess. She knows wounds like that: she’d seen enough people use anything they could get their hands on to defend themselves, during that year. She vaguely wonders how Gwen got that wound, before putting it from her mind, concentrating on the task at hand.

Afterwards, Gwen’s lying on the sofa in the Hub, woozy from the painkillers when Ianto brings Rhys in on the invisible lift. Rhys looks like he wants to jump the last few feet to the ground as he catches sight of Gwen, but Ianto grasps his forearm firmly, holding him back. Only once they’re safely on the ground does he let Rhys run to Gwen, brushing her hair off her face and cradling her and fussing like a mother hen. Jack rounds the corner, standing with a weary smile on his face and his arms folded as Rhys sits with Gwen, Ianto on his other side. Jack’s eyes meet Martha’s and he nods; _good work_ , she understands by it.

She nods back; _just doing my job_. It’s not her job, not really, not forever. UNIT will want her back at some point. But for the moment she’s here, and she gives Rhys Gwen’s antibiotics and helps him get her in the car to take her home, and then sits with Jack in his office and drinks a brandy with him while Ianto takes the rags of Gwen’s bloody shirt and jacket away to the incinerator. After he’s done Ianto comes to join them too, pouring himself a drink and perching on the edge of Jack’s desk.

This is what Martha’s here for: to patch all their injuries and help them mop up the chaos and get everything back to something like an equilibrium. She’ll do this for as long as she can, because they’re her friends, and there’s nothing else she can do.

* * *

Some nights are bad nights.

One morning, Martha comes into the Hub early to find Jack leaning against the wall of the morgue, hands clamped on the handle of a drawer so hard his knuckles have turned white, his forehead braced against the upper drawer with his eyes squeezed closed and his teeth gritted as though in terrible pain.

“ _Jack_.” She runs to him, and he starts for a moment before he recognises her. He must have not even heard the cog door alarm echoing on the level above, which is cause for concern in itself. He straightens quickly, spine going rigid in that military way he has sometimes. She’s not fooled by it for a moment. She pries his fingers off the handle gently but firmly, holding his hands in hers. “What is it, Jack?” she looks around. “I thought you were with Ianto tonight?”

“He’s down in my room, still asleep” says Jack through gritted teeth; he’s avoiding her eye. “But I couldn’t…” he glances at the morgue drawer. “I had to...”

She sighs; she’s read the report of what happened, what Jack was forced to do. “Jack” she says gently, rubbing the backs of his hands. “It’s okay” she says, even though it’s not, and nothing she can say will make it so. “It’s over now.”

He looks down at her, his face so full of pain it tears at her heart. “It’s not though” he says. He tilts his head to the drawer. “My brother’s in there. _Gray’s_ in there. I looked for him for so long, and I had a _brother_ again, and I let him become… I let him do that.” He sighs. “I let him kill Tosh, and Owen too, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t...” He leans his head back, staring at the ceiling as she hugs him. “I have to live with this now” he says, his voice vibrating against the place where her face is tucked in close to his chest. “I have to live with it, forever.”

Martha sighs; there’s nothing she can do to make this better, except to be here, to listen. Jack doesn’t talk like this to many people. Not even Gwen and Ianto, or the others while they were alive, she gathers; however much he loves them, they’re still his employees, he still thinks they rely on him to be the strong one. With her it’s different; she didn’t actually see that much of him during that year, but Jack got to know her family, to actually speak to them. More, she suspected, than he’s spoken to anybody else in… well, she doesn’t even know how long. And somehow, that’s transferred over to her too. Maybe it was those early days with the Doctor that did it – and hadn’t they both seen a little of themselves reflected back at them from each other, and hadn’t it changed them? – or maybe he just trusts her. She wishes it were otherwise, wishes he could talk to the others too rather than constantly feeling as though he has to be the strong one for Gwen and Ianto. But this is part of the reason she’s here; to help Jack through this when she knows he’ll be tearing himself up inside.

She tilts her head, pulling back and looking at him. His face is teary and he wipes his eyes on his sleeve, with a slight, self-conscious laugh. “Ha. I must look like hell right now.”

“A bit” she admits, reaching up to thumb a tear away from his cheek. “But it’s fine.” She offers him her arm to return to the main part of the Hub. “Gwen’s still on bed rest today, but if we wake Ianto we can get an early start.”

“No, let him sleep a little longer” says Jack. “He needs the rest after–”

But at that moment the Rift alarm goes off. They both sigh. “Well” says Martha briskly, “you wake Ianto, ask him to get the coffee started would you? I’ll go see what the Rift’s got for us this morning.”

* * *

And some days, there’s a moment’s peace.

It’s nice, sitting around a pub table with Gwen, Rhys, Jack, and Ianto. It’s too warm, but it’s better than the freezing rain outside, the windows steamed up by the warmth and the table too small to properly fit five people at it. But the place is jam-packed, and it’s the only one they could get.

The Rift’s gone quiet after a long, exhausting two weeks, and after directing alerts to all their phones, Jack’s given them a night off. Well. Martha all but told him to give them a night off a week ago – doctor’s orders – and now’s the first time they’ve actually had the chance to make it happen.

And by some miracle, they’ve managed not to dwell on anything bad so far; it really has been a good break, sharing a couple of portions of chips between them and halfway through their second round of drinks. Jack’s telling some anecdote to Rhys and Martha, something that the team found last year, with Ianto and Gwen are chiming in with details now and then.

The evening quickly goes the way of most Torchwood social events though. Which is to say they started out trying to play Never Have I Ever – and yes, they’re resigned to it being a futile exercise with an immortal man around, especially one like Jack – but now it’s devolved into arguing about the rules and parameters of the game.

“You can’t just _lie!_ ” Martha’s saying, indignant. “Never Have I Ever is sacred ground! International waters!”

“We have got that lie detector in the archives” says Ianto. “I could bring it along next time.”

“Aw, it’s been ages since I’ve used that thing” says Jack, looking a little nostalgic. “Good times. ...What? There were some weird nights at Torchwood in the seventies...”

Gwen just rolls her eyes.

“Well, I don’t know why you lot _need_ to lie in this game” says Ianto rather primly. “It’s a perfectly simple question. Involving sexual fantasies about certain coworkers who may be at this table, granted, but still.”

“Oh, come on” Gwen rolled her eyes. “That’s _so_ clearly biased in your favour. In fact this whole game is… what’s even the point of all this mystery when some of us have walked in on you and Jack going at it like bunnies right in front of the alien begonias…?”

“Oh god, I’ve heard this story” says Rhys, looking from one to the other. “The infamous greenhouse incident, hmm? That true then?”

Jack winks. “Like Gwen, you’re always welcome to come see for yourself.”

Ianto gives an affronted pout; Gwen looks rather distressed at this proposition. “And as for _you_ Martha Jones” she says. “I don’t know why you had to start this. You must’ve known it wasn’t going to end well.”

“Hey, Ianto’s right, it’s a perfectly simple question. And besides, I didn’t specify following through on it” laughs Martha. “But if there’s anyone at this table who can say they’ve _never_ had a confusing sex dream about Jack...”

Ianto raises an eyebrow. “Let them cast the first stone, et cetera?”

Gwen’s blushing all over her face. Beside her, Rhys is far, far too absorbed in the light bites menu. Ianto snorts into his pint; Jack looks over at him, mildly indignant. “Gotta say, I wouldn’t’ve had you down as _confused_ about what you wanted. Lot of other words I’d use, but...”

“Call it an early moment of conflict” Ianto says. He squints, eyes going a little unfocused. “Though, some of the ones these days have an awful lot of moving parts...”

“That elaborate huh?” says Jack, smirking. “Maybe we can hammer out a practical demonstration of the mechanics of–”

“ _Okay_ ” says Gwen, taking a too-large sip of her drink and slopping a little down her shirt. Rhys is studiously avoiding all their eyes, turning as pink as she is.

“You’re all welcome” says Jack, somehow encompassing the whole table with his wink and looking extremely pleased with himself. “I take tips.”

“Now look what you’ve done” says Ianto to Martha. “As if his ego needed that.”

“Oh, I dunno if there’s more damage to be done” she says. “I imagine Jack himself isn’t exempt from that list.”

“...I’ve had my moments. Time travel really does wonders for the subconscious.”

Martha can’t help it; she bursts out laughing. That sets Gwen off giggling, and Rhys is laughing too, a little awkwardly. Jack’s grinning in a delighted sort of way, and Ianto snorts, face in his hands. After a minute they’re all just laughing together, and it’s the happiest Martha thinks any of them have been in far, far too long.

* * *

It’s late, the pub’s closed and they’re walking down the road to the SUV in the rain. Rhys and Gwen live just around the corner and have already said goodbye to stumble back to their flat. It doesn’t feel so cold now, with the amount of alcohol in her bloodstream, but Martha’s fingers are chilly; she shoves them in her pockets. Jack must see her because his arm comes down around her shoulders, warm and grounding. On his other side, he’s slipped his arm out of his coat which is half wrapped around Ianto’s shoulders; Martha’s amazed two relatively tall men can make that work, but they seem to manage well enough. It helps that apparently Ianto’s drunk enough to have forgotten his buttoned-up stiffness, and is clinging close and loose-limbed to Jack’s side. She smiles faintly; a while ago Jack told her Ianto gets surprisingly handsy when he’s had a drink or two – or more, in this case – and Martha can see he wasn’t exaggerating.

Jack laughs, squeezing Martha to his side and giving her a kiss on the top of the head. Then leans over to kiss Ianto too, who has apparently got jealous and has made this known by soundly groping Jack’s backside under his coat.

“Well, this is nice” comments Jack. “Could get used to being the filling in a Jones sandwich.”

Martha makes eye contact with Ianto across Jack’s chest, and his eyebrows raise just a little, teasing; she snort-laughs, and that makes him laugh too, and then trip on a crack between the paving stones, only being saved from falling by Jack’s quick arm around his waist.

“...Aaaand let’s not die falling on the pavement, huh?” says Jack, deftly steadying Martha and setting Ianto back on his feet again, still a little unsteady. Ianto whines something inaudible at him and Jack mutters something back, arm firm and steadying around Ianto’s hips. Jack, as usual, has had only water all night so he’s pretty much the only one of them keeping them upright. She wonders vaguely why she’s never seen him drink much on these trips; it’s not that he doesn’t drink at all, after all. Jack will sometimes have a drink in his office after a bad day, it’s just that whenever they go out he only drinks water. She could speculate, but she puts it from her mind; if she asked, she has a feeling his explanation would contain the words _you gotta be ready_. Besides, she’s his doctor, she shouldn’t be worrying about him not drinking. Not that that – or anything, actually – makes a difference to Jack’s health, she supposes, but… she frowns, too fuzzy-headed to think too hard about anything in particular apart from leaning on Jack, who’s steering them in the direction of the SUV.

As the only sober one he’s the designated driver, and when he gets there he laughs as he extricates himself – with some difficulty – and deposits them both in the backseat of the car. Martha leans sleepily against Ianto in the back of the car as Jack drives to her hotel, the chilly raindrops clinging to their coats warming up between them as they doze against one another, streetlights scanning past outside. It’s nice, leaning against Ianto. Jack’s turned the radio on softly in the front of the car, just enough to be a background hum.

They reach Martha’s hotel before Ianto’s flat; Jack takes her out and walks her to the foyer, arm in arm, curiously formal.

“Ianto going to be okay?” she says; she’s sobering up slightly now, but she’s still dead tired, half falling asleep on her feet.

Jack smiles gently, pressing the lift call button for her. “He’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’ll take him home, get him a glass of water, tuck him up in bed–”

“That code for something?”

Jack smirks. “Kinda wish it was, but despite Ianto’s best efforts I doubt much’ll happen. As soon as I get him under that duvet he’ll be out like a light in thirty seconds. Bet you.”

“Done.” Martha can’t resist a huge yawn as the lift beeps, doors opening before them. Jack walks her into the lift, and Martha sways against him as they see themselves in the big ornate mirror. “You’re good, Jack” she says. “You take good care of Ianto, and Gwen.”

She feels him tense beside her; this is getting close to things they don’t talk about, she realises just after the words have left her mouth. Because Jack may take care of his team, but sometimes that’s not enough. For Tosh and Owen it wasn’t, and everyone knows the typical life-expectancy of a Torchwood employee. “C’mon, Martha Jones” he says, as the lift doors slide open with a soft _ping_. “Your floor.”

She lets him walk her to her door, then stands on her tiptoes and gives him a kiss on the cheek. He leaves her there with an affectionate smile and touch of her hand, turning back down the corridor as she goes into her room. She can barely keep her eyes open, but she goes over to the window, opening it up to let the cold, damp air touch her face again. Outside on the street, she sees the SUV under the garish orange glow of a streetlight; as she watches, Jack comes up to it. At the same time the door opens and Ianto comes out onto the pavement, draping his arms around Jack’s shoulders and speaking to him for a moment. Even with the distance, she can see Jack’s smile as he all but holds Ianto up, giving him a brief, brushing kiss before helping him into the passenger seat.

She watches as they close the doors, until the car has driven off down the street and around the corner into the rainy night.

When Martha lies down in her wide, comfortable bed the world is spinning just a little, but she feels a profound sense of calm, and is asleep before very long at all.

* * *

Not a week after their night off, Ianto gets shot.

True to the predictions, the Rift had stayed mostly quiet all that week; a few days after though, regression to the mean kicks in, and then some. Straight away they’re run off their feet again, exhausted, unfocused and overstretched for days at a time. Gwen’s got a bad cold and is trying to pretend she hasn’t, and is grumpy for it. Meanwhile, Ianto and Jack must have had some kind of spat before work this morning, and clearly it escalated because now they’re barely talking. Martha hates being around them when they’re like that, Ianto frosty and aloof, going about his duties in passive-aggressive silence, and when he does talk there’s a resentful, cutting edge to his usual wry sarcasm. Jack’s in a foul mood, snapping at them all for the slightest thing. Gwen’s clearly on the brink of knocking their heads together like conkers, and Martha’s just trying to hold everyone together. On top of all that it’s raining again, a fine, frigid drizzle that’s seeping into their clothes and shoes.

But Torchwood doesn’t stop for such things, of course. They’re on a mission, a simple stake-out of an alien egg trading ring run by some rather unscrupulous types. They aren’t supposed to be raiding the place yet, just taking a look. But something goes wrong and before they know it they’re in the middle of a fire fight.

The bullet hits the soft flesh just below Ianto’s clavicle on the left, and for a moment the world spins around them; it’s like Owen again, it’s just the same, he’s falling and he’s bleeding on the tarmac as Jack lets out half a snarl, half a shout, emptying his gun into the man who did it until he’s lying motionless on the ground. The others are getting away but Martha ignores them, her hands pressing on Ianto’s wound as blood seeps and bubbles between her fingers. It’s not through the heart, thank god, not like Owen, not like last time. She blocks out everything else and presses down on the wound, ignoring Jack who’s kneeling beside her in a spreading pool of Ianto’s blood.

Gwen runs around the corner just as Martha’s opening the med kit. “Jack, where’s the SUV? They’re getting away, I can–” she breaks off as she sees the scene in front of her. “Oh… oh my god, no no, oh bloody hell please not Ianto, _no_ _–_ ”

“ _Gwen!_ ” Jack snaps, and she gets the impression he’s barely clinging on, that if he wasn’t barking orders he’d be screaming too. “ _Stop_. Let Martha do her job.”

And Gwen does; she helps a bit, passing Martha what she needs to dress the wound, at least well enough to keep Ianto from bleeding out before they can get him back to the Hub. On the drive back, Jack breaks the speed limit multiple times over as Martha sits with Ianto in the backseat. Every so often he peers back at them, meeting Martha’s gaze in the mirror. Gwen keeps craning over the back of the seats to look back at them too, reaching back and taking Ianto’s hand and giving it a squeeze. Ianto, semi-conscious, reaches back, clasping her hand as best he can.

They share something new now, these three; that much is obvious to Martha. Something different to the last time she was here. Tosh and Owen’s deaths have left a sorrow that’s never going to fully fade, but something new is growing from their grief, like scar tissue where a wound was.

They get Ianto back to the med-bay and Martha sees to his wound properly, as Jack and Gwen wait impatiently on the walkway. The wound is small but deep, the bullet lodged right under his clavicle, its glancing path fracturing the bone. Ianto was lucky; just a little lower and he really would have been another Owen, but with no glove, no magic cure to bring him back this time. Again Martha puts it from her mind, concentrating on picking out fragments of bone from the wound as Jack and Gwen watch apprehensively.

Afterwards Ianto sleeps, painkillers in his bloodstream keeping him under. Half his bare chest is swathed in clean bandages, his arm bound in a brace, keeping him from jarring the broken bone when he wakes. Like Gwen, Ianto’s got healed scars scattered across his skin. It comes from being Torchwood, Martha supposes. Though this rule has one notable exception; Jack’s worked for Torchwood longer than any of them, and there’s not a scar on him despite all the violence he’s suffered. Martha reflects that she herself is the opposite; while nothing leaves a scar on Jack, she’s got scars from things that technically never happened at all. But her body remembers; she remembers.

Jack also carries his own horrors from that year, Martha knows, but he keeps them tucked away close.

They stand side-by-side, Jack, Gwen and Martha, watching over Ianto as he sleeps. After a while Gwen gets a call from Rhys – he’s nervous, wondering where she is because it’s been hours and she hadn’t noticed time passing. She paces around the Hub, and they can hear her tearfully apologising; Martha knows Rhys won’t hold it against her, he never does, but they’ve all had a hard day and it’s clearly getting to Gwen.

Eventually, Martha persuades her that it’s okay to go home, that Ianto’s out of danger and will still be here in the morning. All the while Jack’s sitting silent on a plastic chair, Ianto’s hand held loosely between his own. After sending Gwen home, Martha watches him from the doorway of the med-bay for a while. Jack is so still he could be carved from stone, and the place is silent apart from the soft beeping of Ianto’s heart monitor. It would be too silent, she thinks, if not for that.

She’s just wondering if the quiet moments in between ever get to Jack when he looks up at her, meeting her eye. She expects him to tell her she should go and get some sleep too, but instead he sighs. “Thank you” he says. He indicates Ianto. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let him get hurt.”

“We’ve all had a rough time lately. It’s not your fault.”

“Still. Thanks.”

She nods. “It’s what I’m here for, Jack.”

“Yeah.” He sighs, fingers smoothing over the backs of Ianto’s knuckles as he thinks for a moment. “This morning, he and I had a fight about dry cleaning. About _dry cleaning_ , Martha!”

“Oh, that’s why you two were in a strop with each other this morning?”

“We weren’t–!” Jack frowns. “Yeah… I guess. It’s just…” he shakes his head, thumb rubbing over and over Ianto’s hand. “Every time something happens, every time we argue over anything I have to live with the fact that it could be the last thing I say to him. You saw what happened today, and I couldn’t even do anything. I would’ve got between that bullet and him if I could, but...” he sighs. “I guess I just wasn’t fast enough.”

Martha frowns. “Dry cleaning” she says. “What exactly were you fighting about dry cleaning for?”

Jack gives a long-suffering sigh. “It’s the third time this week for my coat. Ianto says it’s getting threadbare, not to mention all the little rips in it he sews up. I told him I could do it myself... I've been a soldier, I know how to mend my own damn clothes. But he wants to do it for me, and insists on dry cleaning when it’s hardly any blood at all” Jack rolls his eyes. “And _somehow_ , this is my fault.”

Martha sighs. “You’ve died three times this week Jack, all of them bloody. So I don’t think that was actually about dry cleaning.”

He frowns; clearly he’s had the same thought, but he doesn’t like it. “Ianto’s used to seeing me die. He knows it’s better that way, better if it’s me that gets in the way of a bullet or a knife, or a weevil’s claws.”

“Yeah,” says Martha, stroking the hair back from Ianto’s forehead. “He knows. But that doesn’t stop it being hard to watch.” She frowns. “ _I_ find it hard to watch too, and I’m not even your–”

“ _Don’t_ ” he cuts her off, rather roughly. “I know. I know, I know how much it hurts him, but what can I do, Martha?” he laughs bitterly. “You know, I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to let myself get so...” he tails off.

She doesn’t push him; she just sighs. “I know, Jack.” And she does; she’s seen the way he looks at Ianto and Gwen, like he’s afraid they’ll disappear. The way he’d looked when he brought Gwen in wounded back then, the way he’d been today with Ianto. Tosh and Owen are still on his mind all the time, she knows.

She doesn’t have a solution to that, or to Gwen and Ianto being in danger. She knows she could give Jack a speech about it being their choice to fight, to work to keep the world safe, but she doesn’t think it would be very productive; Jack clearly knows this already. Anyway, practical solutions are much more Martha’s forte. “Look, you know what you need to do, don’t you? Because… I hate to say it Jack, but I won’t be able to stay here forever.”

He drops his head, with a sigh. “Yeah.”

“Yes. So, you need to hire a new doctor, and a new tech. At least. Maybe others, if you can find the right people. I can put you in touch with–”

“Martha!” he interrupts her. “Martha. Stop.”

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’ll do it! I will. I’m looking into it, I promise… it’s just… you know.”

She’s about to argue. But her eyes catch on his hand holding Ianto’s again, sweeping over the backs of his fingers. Ianto could have died today, but they were lucky, and Jack’s hurting enough. “...Okay” she says, relenting. “I believe you, Jack.”

He reaches for her with his free hand, pulling her into a side-hug and pressing a grateful kiss to the top of her head, and after that they subside into silence, the matter put aside. For tonight, at least, they sit and silently watch over Ianto. Tomorrow, there’ll be more battles to fight, and monsters to chase, and griefs to wrestle with.

But tonight, at least, there is peace.

* * *

Martha misses Tom both more and less than she expects. She video calls him every few days, sometimes when she’s utterly exhausted and covered in blood and various alien secretions and who knows what, sometimes with the rest of the team grinning over her shoulders and waving at the screen. Hearing his voice sounds so… normal. He keeps asking when she’s coming back, and she doesn’t know. She tells him it’ll be when UNIT asks for her back; until then, she’s of more use here.

He visits her for the weekend, at one point. Unfortunately they don’t get to spend much of it together, because the Rift throws down a cluster of meteors into the bay, which turn out not to be meteors but a fleet of tiny spaceships containing the last survivors of a race of creatures that look more like stretched-out owls than anything else. They’re awfully fussy and nervous, perturbed after losing their homeworld, not mention bruised from the unexpected crash landing over water. Thus, Martha finds herself treating all their minor bumps and abrasions all night, then talking them into a calmer state even as the Hub fills up with their feathery visitors.

By the time she finally finishes there, Tom’s gone back to her hotel room to take a nap, having just got off the seven-hour flight to Heathrow and driven over to Cardiff for her. She feels a little guilty as she slips into bed next to him; he doesn’t even wake as she kisses him on the temple. They’re used to this, with both of them doctors and with her usual job with UNIT; of course they are. But Torchwood is different, less predictable, more desperate and constantly embattled. She understands why Gwen had such a tough time before Rhys knew the truth about all of this.

Martha’s debating whether to wake Tom properly or just let him sleep when her phone chimes on the bedside table; Rift alert.

She sighs, pulling herself back up to her feet and going to look for her shoes, tucking the duvet around Tom’s sleeping form.

Hopefully she can at least be back by morning.

* * *

Tom’s gone home again, and the season is changing. Ianto’s collarbone is healing well; he’ll have full mobility in the shoulder and the arm, she’s pleased to tell him, and even behind her she can _hear_ Jack’s smirk.

There’s also a little round puncture mark where the bullet had gone in, still tender and pink, newly healed. That should fade soon too, with any luck. But Ianto’s mending, and Gwen’s wounds healed some time ago, and Jack seems more at ease for it.

And something else is changing too; they’re reaching a kind of equilibrium. Last week they’d been out in the field, and by the time Martha had made it to the side of an injured man, she’d found Gwen already doing a pretty good job of stemming the flow of blood from his leg. Jack’s finally learning the more conventional twenty-first century way of doing CPR. Ianto has a steady hand and can do a pretty good job of suturing a wound now; it had actually turned out to be pretty easy to teach him, after he realised that in principle at least it’s just like the repairs he regularly does on Jack’s coat, in neat, invisible stitches. None of them know how to properly – thoroughly – do an autopsy, but that’s the next step. They’re learning.

The fact is, they’re settling into something of an equilibrium again, after everything. Barring the odd crisis, things are calming down. They’re a bit less co-dependent too: she’s been watching them, and those little fearful glances, like they’re scared the others will disappear around them when they look away, are leveling off. It’s good, Martha knows. They’re healing, and becoming stronger for it, and the world’s better off.

They still need her, but they won’t forever.

And that’s when UNIT calls her back. There’s something happening, she gathers, some astronomical or cosmological phenomenon that UNIT are researching that they won’t let her in on until she’s briefed in person. She’d asked the others about it the other day, but Tosh, it turns out, had made hacking look like child’s play; in actuality it’s harder than it looks to get into UNIT’s systems without them knowing Torchwood was involved. And she doesn’t want to bring down more trouble on Jack and Gwen and Ianto; that’s the last thing they need.

So she tells UNIT yes; she’ll come back.

Her last day in Cardiff is quiet. She’s banned them point blank from throwing her a leaving party – tempting fate, she points out – but she can’t stop Ianto from buying her favourite pastries from the bakery around the corner, and now they’re sitting around sharing them and drinking cups of coffee on the steps in the Plass as they wait for the UNIT car that will take Martha back to London.

When it arrives, she gives each of them a big hug in turn. “And if anything happens, call me okay?” she tells Jack sternly as she collects her suitcase.

Jack grins. “Not if you call me first.”

She looks at him, raising an eyebrow and taking out a different phone from her pocket. “I’ve still got this, if you need it.” She sees Jack’s eyes widen a little, and knows he recognises it; a direct line to the Doctor if it proves necessary. Her eyes focus on him. “But only in emergencies. ...And remember what I said that time, hmm?” She knows he knows she’s talking about that conversation late at night in the Hub, after Ianto got hurt.

He gives her a salute. “Understood, Doctor Jones.”

She gives him a salute back, holding her serious demeanour for a moment before cracking a smile. “Aw, c’mere” she says, hugging Jack again. She gestures up to the other two, and Gwen pulls Ianto into the group hug. “I’m going to miss you lot.”

“Well, we’ll still be here whenever you get bored of UNIT.”

Martha laughs. She lets herself enjoy holding and being held by all three of them for just a moment before she breaks away, turning and getting into the armoured car.

As she’s driven away from Cardiff, she leans her forehead against the cool window and wonders when she’ll see them again; what crisis will bring her back to these friends she’s come to treasure. She doesn’t know, but she hopes she can help anyway. After all, she’s a doctor – it’s what she does.

All she can do is hope it’ll be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the KT Tunstall song "Heal Over" because apparently sometimes I'm compelled to title my Torchwood fics with lyrics from the music I, specifically, was listening to at the time the show aired.  
> Find me on tumblr @ultraviolet-eucatastrophe!


End file.
